Restless Natives
Restless Natives is a collaborative showcase featuring 3 performers and 4 filmmakers who chronicle the authentic stories and struggles of those born with indigenous ancestry. Restless Natives was funded through the SF Arts Commission’s Native American Arts and Cultural Traditions Grants program.
Malia Connor will premiere “Poi Dog Teachings”, a 3-part exploration of her mixed heritage with a focus on Polynesian Roots. Two members of Malia Movement Company (Susie Lundy and Jhyl Reid) will accompany her and together they will present how reconnecting with tradition is crucial to the survival of Indigenous Peoples worldwide.
Dawn Rudd All My Relations is a multi media interdisciplinary performance piece created in celebration of those born with a delightful mixture of rich native ancestry. This piece is an exploration of family lineage, ceremony, healing and inner life visual artistry staged in the past, present, and future.
RaMona Webb will premiere Five Civilized Tribes From The Book of Corinne, the “Five Civilized Tribes” were the Native American nations, which were considered “civilized” by Anglo-European settlers in 1859. This docu-ritual drama performance is inspired by my grandmother Corinne Ramona Perryman Schuster, her life as Black Creek American, and herjourney through Alzheimer’s disease.
QWOCMAP films:
TWO EMBRACE
director Carrie House
2009 USA 5 minutes
Encounters with European Christians change the measure of Two-Spirit ambassadors in this animated voyage.
CON UNA LENGUA QUE NO ES MIA
director Leticia Miranda
2010 USA 3 minutes
A woman mourns the loss of language and legacy.
WARRIOR GIRL
director Carrie House
2010 USA 1 minute
Flirtatious glances abound in the ceremonial lodge.
TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS VALUES
director Ruth Villasenor
2009 USA 8 minutes
The dissonant frequencies of colonization and Prop 8 cause us to rethink our own beliefs.
Biographies
Malia Connor will premiere “Poi Dog Teachings”, a 3-part exploration of her mixed heritage with a focus on Polynesian Roots. Two members of Malia Movement Company (Susie Lundy and Jhyl Reid) will accompany her and together they will present how reconnecting with tradition is crucial to the survival of Indigenous Peoples worldwide.
Dawn Rudd “All My Relations” is a multi media interdisciplinary performance piece created in celebration of those born with a delightful mixture of rich native ancestry. This piece is an exploration of family lineage, ceremony, healing and inner life visual artistry staged in the past,present, and future.
RaMona Webb will premiere Five Civilized Tribes From The Book of Corinne, the “Five Civilized Tribes” were the Native American nations, which were considered “civilized” by Anglo-European settlers in 1859. This docu-ritual drama performance is inspired by my grandmother Corinne Ramona Perryman Schuster, her life as Black Creek American, and her journey through Alzheimer’s disease.
QWOCMAP films:
TWO EMBRACE
director Carrie House
2009 USA 5 minutes
Encounters with European Christians change the measure of Two-Spirit ambassadors in this animated voyage.CON UNA LENGUA QUE NO ES MIA
director Leticia Miranda
2010 USA 3 minutes
A woman mourns the loss of language and legacy.
WARRIOR GIRL
director Carrie House
2010 USA 1 minute
Flirtatious glances abound in the ceremonial lodge.
TRADITIONAL INDIGENOUS VALUES
director Ruth Villasenor
2009 USA 8 minutes
The dissonant frequencies of colonization and Prop 8 cause us to rethink our own beliefs.
Biographies
Ramona “Mona” Webb is the Artistic Director of Lyrical Minded/Project A.B.L.E., which is an art based learning for equity curriculum implemented in the San Francisco School District. She is a full time working artist in San Francisco perusing an MFA degree in writing for stage and screen with an emphasis in Experimental Performance. RaMona is a Performance Artist who moved to the Bay Area from Baton Rouge Louisiana where she was co-founder and president of The Baton Rouge Poetry Alliance for 8yrs. Webb has been a teaching artist for the last 11 years stretching from Louisiana to California. She is the FemmC of several queer events in the Bay Area, and is associated with Movement Productions, and Nursha Project. Webb’s work has been reviewed as “docu-ritual- drama theater”. The last 4 productions Ramona has written have debuted in San Francisco: New Orleans Anonymous part I & II, Passing, and A Dream World of Memory. She has most recently written and performed for Head Rush Crew in RawDios and Deep Water Movement Companies Our Daily Bread. Ramona is the host, organizer, and Slammaster of the San Francisco City Poetry Slam & Experimental Mic, which is the venue the Adult San Francisco National Poetry Slam Team is produced and is the head coach of the SF team, which won 3rd in the Nation in 2009. Ramona has been on nine National Poetry Slam Teams and has been an activist performance poet on the National circuit for 15 years. Ramona seeks to create new platforms for community through lyrical creativity, poetry, music, visual art, dance and all avenues of artistic expression in all that she produces.
Malia Movement Company was created by Malia Connor in 1992 as a vessel to bring together of varying ethnicities, ages, body types and socio-economic status through the art of dance. Malia and her company firmly believe that all people can find inspiration in one another, and are dedicated to creating opportunities for this using different mediums and platforms of theater. Their programs have evolved into visual meditations; experiences that embody a seamless blend of Malia’s fluid movement vocabulary, social consciousness and commitment to artistic diversity. As a Dunham trained dancer, Malia personally identifies with movement that is healing, socially relevant and multi-dimensional.
I am Dawn Rudd, daughter of Matthew III and Arlene, granddaughter of Matthew II, Daisy, John and Leora, great granddaughter of Matthew, Queenie, Stokes, and a Woman whose name I do know. I am African, Sioux, Cherokee, European; mixed blood, living synthesis. I am a woman, I am an artist, I am Femme. I am committed to healing myself and freeing my ancestors. I grew up in Connecticut, but it was New York City that raised me, I began to write poetry and hone my artistic skill, studying Art at Parsons The New School for Design. The Bay Area has allowed my talent to blossom and mature. I’ve been blessed to share my visual art, poetry and performance on both coasts. My images, my words, are expressions, emotion and prayer. My work is inspired by the unseen, the unknown, the veiled. I seek to create art that offers a glimpse of the inner life, the soul speaking.
Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project Filmmakers:
Founder of the Gallup Film Foundation, Carrie House is a Nadle’ (Two-Spirit) of Dine’ Navajo and Oneida Iroquois descent.
A third-generation Chicana, Leticia Miranda is learning to love, fulfill her life’s work and live her politics.
Of Chiricahua Apache & Mexican descent, Ruth Villasenor is the co-chair of BAAITS and has been involved in activism since her first Two Spirit gathering in the 90’s.